


Karma, Leave These Kids Alone

by sunriseseance



Series: We took the blame, took our bags to the train [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, No Incest, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sibling Love, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-22 10:40:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22148119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunriseseance/pseuds/sunriseseance
Summary: Klaus is right, because he usually is. Their childhood was worth fearing. But it wasn’t all bad, she thinks, and some guilt pangs her. I wouldn’t wish this on us, but I’m glad I got him out of it. I’m glad Claire is safe.She holds out her hand for him, and he takes it.---A meditation on Allison and her traumas, guilts, fears, and loves. Centered around her and Klaus, their love for one another, and how that changes her love and fear for Claire.(Loosely follows "Happy Birthday, Johnny" but you in no way have to read that to follow this. But you can.)
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: We took the blame, took our bags to the train [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594129
Comments: 19
Kudos: 111





	Karma, Leave These Kids Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Allison <3

Allison finds Klaus out behind the house, in an alley she’s snuck through countless times. An alley she’s sneaking to, now, because she has half a hope that the others don’t know she picked up on smoking again. Claire is asleep in one of the spare rooms, one she can look in on from this alley. By design. Like she’s afraid Claire will disappear if she looks away too long. Like she’s made the kid up.

Klaus begs someone to leave and, for a moment, Allison thinks it’s her. Knows it’s her, because she’s done so much wrong so many times why would he want to be with her? Even for a smoke? She turns to leave, almost, before she sees his eyes find her, sees the smile form on his lips, reach his eyes, and turn into a statement.

“Oh, thank god you’re here.” He moves over, to the left, to give her space on the wall. He asks, again, that someone go away. 

“Rough night?” Allison asks. She takes the offer of his lighter. He exhales a swirl of smoke. He coughs. She remembers what a bad idea this is. 

It’s three in the morning. Neither of them should be up. 

“I… was about to lie to you. Yeah. Rough night.”

She squeezes his shoulder, and feels him flinch at the touch before he settles into it. He looks tired. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” She knows the answer. Klaus never wants to talk about anything. She offers anyways. He smiles, a bit, and looks at the ground. He takes another drag. 

“They’ve started touching me, sometimes. When I sleep. Not hard. Not yet. But I… don’t like it. And sleep is hard anyway, you know, on account of a horrific amount of screaming both real and trauma induced. Same old thing, you know, I’m sure you remember.”

She remembers. She remembers a list she wrote at 26. 

Allison’s list of facts: 

Claire’s imaginary friend is a young girl, Callia, with a missing eye.

She talks to her at night. She seems to have a growing “family” of people that seem entirely unrelated to Callia. 

She talks about a man who runs by their car while they’re driving. 

She has nightmares  
Lots of nightmares.

Diagnosed as night terrors

Not uncommon

Nothing definitive. Her hands shook anyway. She watched her girl, her baby girl, sleep extremely unsoundly. Patrick was in their room, asleep. He told her not to worry. Said, hey, kids have imaginations. Kids have nightmares. She’ll be fine. He had no idea. 

When they were kids, little kids, from when memories are fuzzy at the edges and the rooms look wrong, she heard Klaus screaming from his room in the middle of the night. They couldn’t have been older than four. When Four was still Four and not Klaus yet. When he stole one of her barbies and loved it so much she decided it was a birthday present. When she would cover her ears at night to drown him out, and resent him in the morning. Before she knew what the word resent even was. 

She remembered Klaus’s imaginary friend. A girl named Lydia, with half a face. She remembered his insistence that she was right there, right with them, that she wanted to play with them. She remembered this as she stepped over the air mattress that Claire requested for Callia to sleep on. 

Allison brushed the sweaty hair from Claire’s brow, and decided to make a call. First to a doctor. Just a doctor, for then. Just to see if it was possible. No need to worry if it wasn’t possible. 

The brick of the ally, the scratch and coldness, break through her shirt and she shivers. Klaus shuts his eyes, holds his breath. She wants to help him. Wants it so much it makes her bones ache. 

“I remember,” she says, “I… didn’t know it was still bad.”

He laughs, but it’s hollow. Biting. 

“Well it’s never been a cake walk, but it is even less of a cake walk right now. I’m glad Claire didn’t turn out to…” He trails off, sticks his cigarette back in his mouth with skeletal, shaky hands. 

So he remembers, too. 

The doctor said that Allison had exactly one difference from your average human being. One Claire didn’t share, but not one that should have any impact on the existence of powers. Blood type only affects donation, he said, only basic platelets. Her blood type being something she shared with only 6 other people, and those six other people not all having powers in and of that, meant that the blood type was a variation, not a cause. 

So, then, he didn’t know where to begin to test for powers.  
So, she felt like crying. Like she was frozen in place and burning up and Dad’s apocalypse was here.  
So, she had two options. Two possible experts. 

When Claire was born, before it was even announced to the press, she got a letter from the first expert. 

Reginald’s letter:

Number Three, 

My congratulations on your welcome to parenthood. I trust you will come to understand me better in the next several years. Pray your child does not treat you like you treated me.

Speaking of the child, I request to examine her. I have some unresolved curiosities.

Regards,  
Reginald Hargreeves

Then, and it’s no different now, thinking about the letter brought a terrible chill that would freeze Allison in place, cause her to time travel back 15 years, make her throat scratch. She burned it when it arrived. Patrick didn’t know about it. Nobody ever would. 

So, the other expert. 

Two weeks before she decided to call him, she got a courtesy reminder from a rehab center (cheaper than the last one, but she wasn’t a monster, she reasoned. She didn’t cut him off completely) that her bill would come in less than a week. She had a location for him, and a number. 

And, hey, he owed her. 

(She feels guilty, now. So guilty that it catches on the scar on the inside of her throat and makes her choke on some already impossible to breathe smoke). 

Klaus was surprised to hear her voice. She could tell. He didn’t believe it was her. 

He asked her why she called. He sounded tired. Ragged, even. She almost didn’t recognize his voice. 

She told him, well, I was worried about you. For a minute, the residual shock of her calling at all tricked him into believing her. Then, yes, she ruined it (like she ruins everything). She said, hey, and also I think Claire might see the dead.

He laughed that familiar laugh. 

Why would she see the dead? Well, she has an imaginary friend like you used to. She has nightmares. Klaus, I am terrified for her. How did you know it was real? He was quiet, and then he said, well, I could see them. I always could. If she doesn’t see them, she doesn’t see the dead, right? 

And Allison said yes. That makes sense. And then Klaus was quiet for a while longer, and then he gagged, and then he said, well, why are you terrified for her? She heard the venom in his voice. 

And here’s the subtext of that: 

Allison, you were never terrified for me. You thought it was my fault. You thought I was weak. I’m angry at you for that. You’re terrified because you know this ruined my life. 

I’m scared she’ll turn out like you, she said. He laughed again. 

And here’s the subtext of that:

How you are is horrible, and inevitable and I will not extend you the sympathy that should follow from that, even though I will extend it to my daughter, who is not actually suffering in the way you did. 

And how could Allison undo that?

She couldn’t. She didn’t. She hung up, and did not talk to him for another 3 years. 

Someone who, in childhood, she would’ve called her best friend.

Maybe she could again. 

“I’m sorry, Klaus” Allison says. He looks at her, confused. 

“For what, pray tell? Did you make me get sober? Was that your idea? It was a dumb as shit one.” He bumps her shoulder with his. 

“The Claire thing. It was...cruel of me to blame you for,” she gestures broadly at the world, “everything that was bad with you and then, you know, be scared it might happen to Claire. I don’t know why I fell short with you. It’s not your fault.” 

He grabs her hand. 

“Thank you, Ally. It’s nice to hear someone say that.” 

She can hear the next clause stuck in his throat. 

Here it comes. 

“But that wasn’t… I mean you know that wasn’t all about me, right?” 

Not the request for parting ways she expected. She feels her heart speed up, her stomach flood with anxiety. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, “I don’t know what you mean.”

He pauses. Takes a deep breath. Takes a long drag. Exhales. 

“I mean, I didn’t see it at the time, either. But you were scared she’d have your childhood, too. Not just mine. It was awful for all of us, and it wasn’t your fault either. Dad destroyed us.”

She can’t argue with that. 

“What do you mean?” She knows what he means. She wants him to continue. 

“I mean our childhood destroyed us. I don’t know that there’s a tube of metaphorical therapy glue big enough to turn us into some semblance of broken-glass-people, but it’s worth knowing that the break came from somewhere.” 

Why?

Why? Why? Why? Why? What does that do for her, or him?

“Why? That doesn’t change what I said.” She watches his eyes for some sign of hatred. 

“Because you weren’t just scared she’d turn out like me. You were scared she’d turn out like you. Which, okay, came out way meaner than I meant it. You were scared she’d be broken like us. That’s fine. That makes sense. You love her.”

Patrick had listened to her conversation with Klaus. He’d stood there for all of it. He had the doctors bills, both for her tests and Claire’s, in her hands. His eyes were on fire. 

Metaphorically. He wasn’t one of them. Nobody was.

You’re such a fucking narcissist, Allison, he said. It felt like sandpaper on the back of her neck. You had it so good as a kid and you’re scared that, what, that our child will have it too? You’re scared of being outshined by your daughter? I would kill for her to be like you. You should be happy for her not, jesus, writing to your father to ask if there’s a cure. I cannot believe you sometimes. 

He found the note too. She hadn’t sent it. Not wanting to risk making him so sure that he’d come and break her out of Allison’s arms in the middle of the night. The thought made her want to sob.

She didn’t argue with Patrick. 

Klaus wiped a tear from her eye. He was crying too. 

“I didn’t know. I didn’t, I mean, you’re right. I’d never thought of that.”

“Well I didn’t mean to make you cry” he says, like it’s a joke. Almost. 

“No I… appreciate it. I uh,” she pauses. The last time she told a sibling she loved them, she got her throat sliced. “I love you.”

Worth the risk.

“I love you, too. You can forgive yourself for what you said now, yeah? I would be lying if I said it’s not nice to hear it ate you up a bit, but don’t let it eat you anymore. It’s okay. I’ve said some unkind shit to you, too. Some I don’t even remember, probably.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that. He reads it on her face, scratches at her hair a bit. It’s weird how tall he is, she thinks. And how good at this. 

He continues.

“You have so many metaphorical ghosts, Allison, that if you don’t let them go I might start seeing them.” 

Here’s the subtext of that:

You’ve got too much guilt, Allison. You’re a good person. You didn’t deserve the childhood you got, and you don’t deserve the weight on your shoulders. Take a breath and let it go. 

She looks at his hand, and notices the nails. They’re chewed to the quick, and the polish is chipped to shit. 

“Can I paint your nails?” she asks. 

And he laughs. A real laugh. A warm one. 

“What, you don’t like the current look?” He wiggles them in front of her face. Winces at a ghost. Looks tired again. 

She’s grounded. Resolute. Strong. 

“If you’re not sleeping, I’m not either. Old times sake. Let’s make those babies pink?” 

Klaus is right, because he usually is. Their childhood was worth fearing. But it wasn’t all bad, she thinks, and some guilt pangs her. I wouldn’t wish this on us, but I’m glad I got him out of it. I’m glad Claire is safe. 

She holds out her hand for him, and he takes it. 

That’ll do.

**Author's Note:**

> I will write Allison and Klaus if it kills me. If you... Happen to want to talk to me abt them swing by @ sunriseseance on Tumblr!


End file.
